andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2009-04-25 04:45 pm
andrewducker) wrote2009-04-25 04:45 pm
Speeding Fines
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octopoid_horror let me know about the Finnish system of administering speeding fines:KPH over the speed limit x daily salary.
So if you're 10KPH over the speed limit and earn hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, then you're in for quite a large fine.
Apparently this is how all reasonable sized fines work in Finland - they're expressed in days of pay.
I'm in favour.
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Fines already exist and are already graduated (and, pointedly, cops over here will almost always cite you for the next category down, giving you the error in their measurement devices as an offset in your favour) - this simply changes whether that 8kph is a week's pay *for everyone*, or whether it's a week's pay for you and half a day's for me.
If you are constantly looking at the speedometer, you are a dangerous driver.
If you can't read the spedometer without taking your eyes off the road, your car is badly designed and your spedometer is in the wrong place.
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I also have a problem with the idea that 8kph is a reasonable speed difference to take a weeks salary from someone. It is not the concept of means tested fines I dislike, just the strength of the fines being quoted.
"If you can't read the spedometer without taking your eyes off the road, your car is badly designed and your spedometer is in the wrong place."
I'm guessing you don't drive. You cannot ensure you aren't fractionally deviating from the speed limit and still pay full attention to the road ahead.
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We don't have those, but we do have Red Light Cameras, which are worse - statistically, intersections with RLCs are *more* dangerous, because
A) they cause people to drive erratically and sometimes dangerously to avoid the massive fines, such as by slamming on their brakes or gunning their engine to make it through the light.[1]
B) in many cases, in order to justify the cost of the camera system, the yellow lights are *shortened* so that more people will be caught running them. This is illegal, but hard to catch, and has been the case in many communities.
The actual facts show that adding a second to the amber light and a fraction of a second to the "red in all directions" state before switching prevents for more accidents and injuries than any number of cameras.
I also have a problem with the idea that 8kph is a reasonable speed difference to take a weeks salary from someone. It is not the concept of means tested fines I dislike, just the strength of the fines being quoted.
Ah, okay. I have no argument with you, there.
I'd just rather that, if it's determined that a week's pay is the correct fine for, say, going 60 over the limit, that week's pay will be a week's pay for *everyone* who commits the same offense.
You're arguing that a week's pay is too much for 5kph (one work week), and sure, that I agree on. But as long as you're giving fines in *general*, I'd rather index them to income, and then adjust percentage based on severity of the offense.
(And yes, this would mean I'd be paying more than I would now, were I to get another speeding ticket. But I'd still be paying less than the asshole in the Audi who's weaving in and out of traffic and passed me like I was standing still.)
I'm guessing you don't drive.
You're wrong. I own a car and drive daily. It's a requirement of my business that I be able to get to a client's site in a reasonable amount of time.
And I can see my spedometer without taking my eyes off the road, because the designers of my car were not clueless asshats. Checking my mirrors and clearing my blind spot before changing lanes take more attention than my spedometer, and it would be a hell of a lot more dangerous to NOT do those.
Even checking my tachometer before shifting gears takes more attention than watching my speed, although I can also do that by listening.
But who said anything about fractionally deviating[2]? Like I said, nobody is giving you a ticket for 3-5 or even 10kph over the limit. And the difference between your deliberately going 20 over and accidentally going 23 isn't that big a deal, especially when the ticket is going to take the error in the measuring device into account and ticket you for 15 over in either case.
[1]: This generally requires TWO errors to make an accident, such as someone else following too close, but the fact that the cameras regularly cause one of the errors should tell you, right there, that it's a bad idea.
[2]:I actually tend to toss on cruise control because I've gotten a few speeding tickets in the past and I know I have a lead foot if I don't pay attention.
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And people often cross the rooad when you overtake on these duel carriageways? No.
"And the difference between your deliberately going 20 over and accidentally going 23 isn't that big a deal"
Sadly because Andy Ducker likes to get people to post on his LJ and not actually post legitimate comment, he didn't mention that all these details were readily available on the finnish governmental website which I just looked at. And the difference between 20 and 23 KPH? Well.... a business man just got a mention in their equivilent of th house of commons. You see this fine actually doesnt apply until you have 20KPH over the limit. Until then, it is a 110 Euro fine. So because he was 2 more KPh over the limit, instead of 110... he was charged 118,000 Euros. Now how is THAT fair exactly?
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I suspect you are working from a deeply *different* theory of motorised travel than I am.
Is it nice in 1930, where you live?
Now how is THAT fair exactly?
You appear to once again be deliberately ignoring my point: Fees dependent on the ability of the criminal to pay are more fair than set fees, even if the specifics aren't quite to our liking.
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I AGREE that means paying is better than fixed fines. Do I have to repeat myself in every single thread with you? My problem is that the finnish scheme is utterly fucked up and actually worse than the UK scheme due to the way it is implemented.
"Is it nice in 1930, where you live?"
Keep those strawman arguments going; they are working so well for you right now....
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine
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People cross the road while I change lanes about as often as they cross the road while I check the speedometer.
Perhaps this is a North America thing. Our roads have a lot of lanes. There's plenty of jaywalking on 4-lane and even 6-lane streets in Toronto.
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By this point Andy hadn't been near his computer for four hours, because he'd been off having dinner with his girlfriend, and then gone to bed.
If you want information then google for it yourself rather than blaming me for not spoonfeeding it to you.
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But I also write about stuff I find interesting. And I never deny people information, or deliberately write things that leave out information. I'm underinformed sometimes (and I always appreciate being set right in those cases), but I don't set out to misinform.
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I opened my email last night, noticed 45 new comments on this thread and decided to go to bed rather than end up angrily erplying to anything. I know what I'm like - I over-read what other people say and then snap at them rather than taking a deep breath. It's a very bad habit of mine :->